Everest

Sir Edmund Hillary, the mountain-climbing New Zealand beekeeper who became a mid-20th century hero as the first person to reach the summit of Mt. Everest, has died. He was 88. Hillary, who made his historic climb to the top of the world's highest peak with Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay of Nepal, died today at a hospital in Auckland City, New Zealand, according to Prime Minister Helen Clark. A statement from the Auckland District Health Board said he died of a heart attack.

Yuichiro Miura has an unusual routine for a man who just turned 75. The veteran adventurer awakens at dawn after a night in a private low-oxygen chamber. He straps weights onto his ankles, hoists a 44-pound backpack onto his shoulders and hikes for hours around Tokyo. Sometimes he adds a stroll on his treadmill. Ask Miura why he isn't on the golf course or puttering around a vegetable garden, and he has a simple answer -- Mt. Everest.

Ernest Hofstetter, 95, part of the Swiss climbing team that first traced the route used by Sir Edmund Hillary to conquer Mt. Everest, died June 1 at his chalet in the French Alps, his son Michel told the Associated Press. The Swiss expedition had to turn back just short of the peak in 1952 but is credited with forging the path that Hillary and Tenzing Norgay used in their successful assault a year later. The path is still used today in climbs to the 29,035-foot peak.

"I feel really incredible," Samantha Larson, 18, said Sunday night, describing her sense of accomplishment after having conquered Mt. Everest -- the tallest place on Earth. It was about 9:30 a.m. Monday, Nepal time, and the Long Beach teenager was waiting below a base camp on the side of Mt. Everest for a helicopter to take her trekking group, including her father, to Katmandu.

Samantha Larson of Long Beach, who at 18 became one of the youngest people to summit Mt. Everest, safely arrived Saturday with her father at a base camp on the Nepal mountain, her relieved mother reported. "The most dangerous part of climbing is the descent," said Larson's mother, Sarah Hanson of New York.

From Earth's tallest point, the message was understandably breathless. "We made it to the top!" Samantha Larson told her mother via satellite phone Thursday after reaching the summit of Mt. Everest. "Now all we have to do is make it back down." Larson, 18, of Long Beach, became one of the youngest people to scale the 29,035-foot peak, reaching the summit with a group that included her father, David Larson, 51, an anesthesiologist at Long Beach Memorial Medical Center.

Thousands of adventurers have been drawn to Mt. Everest by the challenge of climbing to the top of the world. Jeff Clapp was drawn by the trash they leave behind. Inspired by a documentary about Everest's rubbish, Clapp traveled to Nepal and brought a load of discarded oxygen bottles back in 2004.

Clint Willis dreamed of pursuing the kind of extreme mountaineering pioneered by a ragtag band of climbers, most of them British, who brought their sport to a new level in the three decades following the conquest of Mt. Everest. To help reconcile those unfulfilled yearnings, he detailed the astonishing accomplishments and heart-rending losses of Chris Bonington and his circle of climbers whose high-altitude expeditions in the Alps and the Himalayas have become the stuff of legends.

Bradford Washburn, who founded the Boston Museum of Science and directed a 1999 effort that revised the official elevation of Mt. Everest, has died. He was 96. The renowned mountain photographer, explorer and cartographer died Wednesday of heart failure with his family at his bedside, said his wife, Barbara. Washburn climbed some of the world's most challenging mountains and is particularly known for his photography of Alaska's Mt. McKinley and for exploring the mountain with his wife.

Mark Inglis' journey to the top of Mt. Everest appeared to be one for the ages, courageous and inspirational, proof that with enough desire a person can overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles. But the first double-amputee to scale the world's tallest mountain may be remembered more for what he didn't do.